My Latest Off Site Exhibiton.

In the Off site Exhibition for this year I decided to explore something new, a combination of activist, protest art, performance and street art. I have been working on a current issue: that of 'High Tuition Fees' which sadly have had a negative effect on the pockets of students across the country (we are the first group of students in the history of the UK to pay such high tuition fees, unlike previous generations who were lucky enough to get grants and pay very little in comparison). At the same time in this specific work I have been exploring the idea of Freedom and how in the West we take it for granted. I mean going around looking for an exhibition space, the other students and I found out soon that the whole of central London is geared towards making money and private business. All the public spaces (including gardens) where we thought they would be happy to have us free of charge for a day but instead told us that we had to pay a lot of money to use the so called 'public space'. We finally found a small rundown piece of land to do our exhibition called 'Free' which many members of the public really enjoyed. I had several people coming up to me asking me about the exhibition; they were very positive and interested. We  were also very sensitive to the fact that we were in a public space; we did varied, temporary work interventions, sensitive to the environment, easily removed, street art - a kind of exhibition which with the bad weather we had wasn't at all easy. With our work we hope to create a free space where one is free to express oneself at will.

Specifically in my work I seek to challenge the traditional boundaries and hierarchies both in society and in the arts; to show that art students - emerging artists - are not represented by those in power and our view point is being completely ignored, especially by the politicians in government. By doing the exhibition in the street we sought to bypass the galleries and access directly a wider audience and create a free, open, new space for us emerging artists, not normally accessible to us, and to create a new cultural space for the public to engage with. With my protest performance piece I encouraged the public to get involved with questions, generally to participate in a dialogue even if it was just to ask me questions, to break boundaries between myself and the viewer. In fact I had some people asking me questions about the slogans I had written on my banner, which was great! And asking me about the way I was dressed. I added an element of fun by wearing a bright wig and glasses and blowing balloons in the air, thinking of performance art to stimulate engagement with the audience but also to question identity, self-representation to bring change in how we view what is around us, and to show to people and myself that it is important to have a voice. Also colour is very important to me; it's a major factor in my artwork and I felt it added playfulness to the performance but it is also present in my paintings and in some of my sculptures and assembled work.

Mark Wallinger State of Britain 

I did look at three artists in particular. One is Mark Wallinger and his State of Britain; another is Gillian Wearing; but I also researched the 1960s Happenings and in particular Allan Kaprow. Mark Wallinger, whose work addressed visually the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan where he rebuilt Brian Haw's protest camp with completed antiwar placards (the same as were seen in Parliament Square before being pulled down by the police thanks to the new Government policies banning British citizens from protesting permanently in front of Parliament) .... Mark Wallinger said that it was an historical reconstruction and he was making a point about freedom of expression, just as I am doing in my work with my banners and the way I am dressed and the overall performance.

Gillian Wearing's performance

 I have been studying Gillian Wearing's portraits and dramas and at her idea of performance where she is seen dancing in a shopping mall, very much aware of her amused audience, demonstrating the liberation of anonymity which in turn allows us to be more truly ourselves. I also looked at her work 1997 Masterpiece. 10.16 and the 1992 series Signs that say 'what you want them to say and not signs that say what someone else wants you to say' where people in the street are offered pen and paper by the artist and they can write their own message to be shown. Finally I studied Allan Kaprow and his Happenings where he interacted with the audience to create an open space without barriers between the artist, the creative experience, and the audience but I turned it very much into my own experience and individual protest performance..